


Phlegethon

by Somnifery (somnifery)



Series: Alcione [5]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 13,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnifery/pseuds/Somnifery
Summary: A Guardian may leave the battlefield behind, fresh, immortal, bloodstained and victorious. Yet, the battle: those moments of terror, the pain, the last, agonizing breath of each death--The battle comes with you.The fear never truly goes away.





	1. Chapter 1

“Are you happy now?” 

Rho sinks lower at the unfiltered resentment in Kedric’s voice, afraid to turn and see his expression. She keeps her eye on her Guardian. 

Tamzin is on her knees, bowed with fatigue and fear, hair hiding her face. The guards hold her up by her arms, belligerent to her obvious distress. Her wrists are bound behind her back, body shaking from silent sobs or simple terror.

Rho can’t tell which, from here. 

She dare not go closer to find out. 

“This isn’t… my fault.” Rho finally answers. “Nobody could have seen this coming.” 

The Ghost can hear the Awoken’s teeth grinding, and she flinches away as he shifts his weight, expecting a blow. 

“You made her worse.” He snarls. “You made sure she didn’t get better. You wanted her like this, and now--” 

He can’t say the words. Rho can’t really blame him. 

“You left her alone in a busy, loud marketplace. You knew the state she was in.” 

She says it simply, as if describing the weather instead of a tragedy. Kedric flinches, anticipating her next words, but she does not falter. 

“If you hadn’t walked away, that man would still be alive.” 


	2. Chapter 2

He scrapes the blade down her hair, humming something soothing and tuneless.

The red strands have covered their simple gray blankets, uneven ends disappearing beneath his careful slices, leaving the nape of her neck bare, her bangs brushing her brow instead of her nose.

Tamzin seems to have dozed off as he works. Her chin is resting against her chest, breathing slowly as he adjusts a few pieces.

“All done,” he speaks softly, setting down his knife, blowing softly on her neck to displace the loose pieces. His breath makes her start upright, the back of her head narrowly avoiding his nose, leaving a smarting spot on his forehead instead.

“Ow,” he puts a hand on his face, waiting for the exploding lights to fade from his left eye. “I think you’ve concussed me.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Tamzin has turned around already, on her knees, leaning forward to try to get a better look. “I was meditating.”

“What?” Kedric blinks, letting his hand fall from his face as he stares at her in disbelief. “You were what?”

“You heard me.” She takes advantage of his surprise, taking his face in her hands, tilting in search of a bruise. “Don’t be mean. I meditate. Sometimes.”

“Rarely.” Kedric sighs as Kessy appears, scanning him. “Very rarely. Girls, I’m fine, it’s just a bump.”

Kessy is already repairing what would have been a nasty bruise, and Tamzin sits back on her feet, lips pursed in an expression he knows all too well.

“Fine, rarely. But I do.” She runs a hand along the ends of her freshly-cut hair, trying to tuck her bangs behind her ears from habit. “I’d say you should try it, but you’re already too calm.”

“I’m not calm.” He swings his legs off the bed, starts tugging the blanket out from beneath Tamzin with a sigh. “I’m controlled. There is a difference. You should try using the void a bit more often, too, it would balance you out well.”

Tamzin scoots off the blanket, watching him shake it out, a cloud of hair drifting away to cover the floor.

“I’ve used it before.” She flops onto her stomach, resting her chin on her forearms. “It didn’t suit me. Not the way it suits you, at least.”

“Just a suggestion.” He snaps the blanket again, tossing it over the bed, covering Tamzin and the mattress as if she were a disruptive cat playing in the sheets. “Put on some pants. I want to go shopping before everything is festival-mad.”

“Pants?” The Warlock turns over, wrapping herself in the blanket, lying so her hair hangs over the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you want me to put clothes on?”

Kedric sighs dramatically, but he’s smiling as he bends down to kiss her, hands resting on the bed on each side of her.  

“I would love to see those legs all the time, but it’s much too cold to be wandering the City in your panties.” He scoops up her pants from the floor as he straightens, tossing them on top of her. “Now get up.”


	3. Chapter 3

There are still pieces of her hair in the dusty corners, clinging to his pants and palms as he crawls around, gathering what she will need, what he can reasonably carry.  

Her clothing, her armor-- He takes what he has paid for, a few utilitarian things. He leaves the old, ugly pieces, the colors that have faded or don’t suit her coloring.

Kedric slips an arm beneath the mattress, finding scraps of paper, a sad and ragged stuffed dog she thinks he doesn’t know about, a knife.

“Kessy,” he says her name quietly, as if afraid they might be overheard. “Get her guns.”

“On it.” The Ghost confirms. “The ship?”

“... Yeah.” He wants to believe it won’t be taken, but he finds a void where his faith used to be. “Get whatever you can, fast. If you need Rho’s help, get it.”

He shoves the last of the clothing into his bag, sitting back on his heels and staring around the bare walls.

Perhaps this is what it feels like when someone dies. When there is a room, and it is all that’s left of them, but there is nothing left to make it feel like their space.  

He tucks the photo into a pouch on his belt. He puts the stuffed dog in the bag.

“Tell me when they’re moving her.” Kedric gets to his feet, hauling the bag onto his back. “You’ll have to get a message to her.”

“What are you going to do?” She sounds anxious, afraid.

“I don’t know.” Kedric feels vaguely sick just saying the words. “I just know what has to be done right now.”

Kessy is silent for a long minute.

Kedric climbs to his feet, taking one last inhale, one last look around.

“We’ll take care of it.” The Ghost finally says. “We’ll make sure we have everything she needs.”


	4. Chapter 4

Titan was a bad idea.

She picks at the melted plastic on her sleeve, counting the threads she’s breaking as she goes, listening to the sound of Kedric breathing across the room.

There’s a couch here, rotting away. A desk. No Hive, though.

Tamzin sits on the couch, wishing the view from inside her helmet were enough to prevent this overwhelming sense of deja vu.

“Are you ready to keep going?”

He sounds so worried. She forces herself to stop picking-- After breaking one more thread, just to keep the number odd-- getting to her feet.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

He’s quiet for a minute, watching her. He can feel the energy coming off of her, high-strung and tight, a concerning contrast to the unhinged terror of earlier hours.

“We should head back to the Tower tonight.” Kedric isn’t sure that’s the right call, but he doesn’t know what else to do. What else to say. “Don’t you want to be home?”

“I want to finish this job.” She sounds peeved, but certain. “I don’t need to go hide in my room because I got scared.”

“I don’t know if scared is the word I’d use.” Kedric hesitates, knowing he’s walking into a fight, knowing it’s one they have to have sooner or later. “You forgot where you were. You thought I was… A Thrall, or something.”

“Only for a moment.”

Tamzin paces to the not-window, back again, beginning to open rusted drawers, finding a broken tablet, picking it up and tapping at it restlessly.

“I’ve been here before. I’ve had dreams about this room.”

Kedric watches her, helpless.

“I’m always sitting on that couch. And there’s a lady-- A lady without a face. There.” She points to a pile of moldering fabric that used to be a chair, stained with black, blood or mildew or simple decay. “I wonder how I died.”

“Tamzin,” he says, pleading. “Today. The Hive.”

She looks at him, and he imagines he can see the manic shine of her eyes through her visor, the high color in her cheeks.

“It’s not a big deal,” she tells him, yet again. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 5

“You could live anywhere. You could be a chef to the stars, literally and figuratively. Why did you decide to stay here? Friends? Family?”

Tamzin is watching the old-fashioned timekeeper on the side table, some mockup that was meant to be a water clock. The gravity of Titan betrays it, though, and the drops are erratic while the hands tick on, one Earth-standard second at a time. The drops are dark today, for some reason. Viscous and black. 

“Hey...” The therapist’s voice is soft, trying to get her attention. She says a _name_ , and for some reason, it makes her look up. Pay attention.

“No.”

Tamzin runs a hand through her hair, sighing and starting to pull it back into a ponytail. These cream walls grate on her. They feel like they’re trying too hard to be bland and soothing.

“My dad died when I was in secondary. Radiation exposure from his work on the colony ships. Mom left us to work in Freehold when I was like ten. Found out later she was having an affair with some Braytech analyst and bailed because she was pregnant with his kid.”

“You told me, briefly.” The therapist is giving her that thoughtful, considering look, blessedly free of pity. Free of eyes. They're empty sockets, bubbling, ether seething down her cheeks. “Friends, though?”

“I have coworkers.” Tamzin shrugs. “We spend so much time in the kitchen--”

“That you don’t have time for a social life.” The therapist finishes. She’s heard this before. “Or a romantic one. But you came here because you want to work on that.”

“No.” Tamzin sighs again, pulling her braid apart, starting again, relieved to avoid eye contact and keep her nervous fingers busy. “No, I came here because you can fix me.”

“I can’t change the past or erase your memories,” the therapist says. She sounds like she regrets that. “I’m here to help you figure out how to move past it. How to process it so you can have a better life.”

“My life is fine.”

“You could be a celebrity chef on Earth, on Mars, anywhere you want. You’d never have to work. You could have other people running your kitchens for you, have restaurants across the system.” The therapist’s word are cool, but brutally honest. “But you won’t leave, because you can’t get on a ship.”

Tamzin swallows, suppressing the urge to start biting at her nails.

“I’m not afraid,” she finally says. “I’ll get on a ship, someday.”

The therapist is staring at her, waiting for her to say more. 

Tamzin looks out the window-- At the monitor pretending to be a window.

The Arcologies are sinking into the sea. There’s liquid methane lapping at the carpet, at the feet of the sofa.  

“Just not today.”  


	6. Chapter 6

He is not the same person he once was, he tells her-- Told her.

The distance between Kedric Living and Kedric Reborn seems to have vanished for Tamzin.

Sometimes she mentions things that he does not remember, things that belong to the vast gulf that came Before. She pauses, a mix of shame of sorrow moving across her features, before she tries to amend the mistake, change the subject.

“If it doesn’t make you sad, I don’t mind.” He says it quietly, brushing her hair away from her face, fingertips finding the hot flush of shame on her pale cheek. “You can talk about things. I just… might not know what you mean.”

Her eyes are unspeakably sad, yet she still smiles for him, reaching out to touch his lips, silence him.

“You know everything you need to know,” she says, the faint light of Saturn bringing out the lightest of reds in her hair, the softest blue in her inhuman eye. “That’s what you told me.”

Kedric is silent for her, letting her go back to her reading, content to watch the slight shifts in her expression when she finds something curious, something distasteful, something challenging. 

“Did I have a family?”

Something frightening, that question.

Tamzin swallows.

He will ascribe her anxiety to being the bearer of bad news, but he will remember this hesitation. That look of fear.

“Once. You told me they all died in the Taken War.”

He ought to feel sad about that, but instead, he feels an odd relief that the answer has changed nothing, added no new factors to the simple balance he has obtained in this life.

“Did you?”

Her smile is a reflection of his own relief.

“I don’t know.” She bends the corner of one page, closing her book, propping up her chin on one hand. “I don’t think so. If I did, they left my body to rot.”

“Maybe they didn’t know.” Kedric suggests, tilting his head, puzzling out her attention to that detail. “Maybe they lost track of you in the evacuation.”

“It doesn’t matter now, either way.”

She’s looking past him, looking at the stars, but he doesn’t want to forget the way she looks right now, free from the fears that have pursued them across the system. He commits her to memory, bathed in Saturn’s light, gaze distant, thinking about something that brings a soft smile to her lips.  

“I won’t leave you,” Kedric says, reaching out to touch her, to feel her warmth. “I’m here to stay.”

“I know.” She closes her eyes, and leans into his hand. “I wouldn’t let you go if you wanted to.”


	7. Chapter 7

Kedric has dreamed about this Tamzin.

In these dreams, she is not a goddess, an angel, a lover.

Her beauty remains, but she is…

Fragile.

Her nightmares, her night terrors, are an enemy he cannot defeat, something he cannot protect her from.

In his dreams, she’s bleeding, and he’s trying to put her back together as she cries, telling him there is something consuming her, something he can’t see.

In their bed, she wakes up screaming, clawing at her arm, her legs, her face, trying to tear away some Hive infection that is not there.

Her distress is a knife in his chest, each gasp of cry of terror twisting the blade, his pain only bleeding out once she has come back to herself, crying in his arms.  

“They’re gone, Tamzin.”

She doesn’t seem to hear him, but he repeats these words like a prayer, a spell, until they find their way through the cracks in her awareness, bringing her out of the past, the panic.

“The Hive can’t get you here, beloved.”

They can get to her, though. They find her dreams each night, her memories each time a child screams in the marketplace, making her stiffen, shy away, hand on her sidearm, magic crackling on her skin.

At night, she burns.

“We should go away.”

The sheets are blackened, the wall scorched, a bubbling, blistering burn on his arm where the flames took hold of his flesh.

She is sobbing, clinging to his hand, apologizing, making it difficult for Kessy to heal him. Kedric puts his unharmed hand on her neck, her face, forcing her to sit upright, to give Kessy space.

“Look at me. Stop apologizing.”

Tamzin stops, sniffling. He smiles, trying to hide his fatigue, lifting a corner of the blackened bedding to wipe the snot from her face.

“Let’s go away for a while. Do some fighting. Fallen, or Cabal… something normal.”

Kessy finishes, and he flexes his blessedly pain-free hand, doing his best to ignore the stench of cooked meat.

“You’re afraid I’ll lose control.” It sounds like an accusation. “You want me away from the Tower.”

“I want to be alone with you.” He strokes her hair, and she wipes her face with the back of one hand, smearing it with ash and tears. “Just for a while. Just until we’re rested.”

Her nod is reluctant. She tastes like salt when he kisses her in thanks.


	8. Chapter 8

They do not speak of Titan, and it festers like a wound between them.

They lose themselves, in a way. She finds something like stability in her work, her spying, and he lets himself believe that she’s fine again.

That all will be well.

It’s as if she’s cut him off from some part of their collective being. He feels her, as he always feels her, those shifts from wildfire passion to ash-brittle, but when he seeks her fear, her pain, he finds nothing, or he finds anger that he must not meet with his own.   

Kedric wants to be angry.

“I love you,” he tells her, kissing her sweat-slick brow, the ship close and humid from their exertions, her cry still echoing in the confined space. “I love you so much.”

“I know.” She is catching her breath, letting him pull her close, sighing as he touches her. “I love you, too.”

“Talk to me, then.” He pleads, softly. “Please.”

She draws away from him, then, though her body does not move. The doors slam shut, and he feels isolated, abandoned.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Tamzin’s voice is soft, seductive, but her lie cuts him like a blade, and she can see the pain flicker across his face. “Really.”

“... When you’re ready.” He says, as if she told him she wasn’t, as if she told the truth. “We can talk when you’re ready.”

She kisses him, and he lets her take him, lets himself forgive her, if only until she sleeps.


	9. Chapter 9

She is sitting on the edge of a table, and he is sewing her back together.

“That hurts,” she says.

“Squeeze my shoulder, if you need to.” He smiles at her, reassuring. “It’ll only hurt for a minute.”

Her hands are covered in blood, but he doesn’t mind. She squeezes as he slips his needle into her flesh, pulling the skin together, ignoring the torrents of blood that pour from the wound, down his front, flooding the floor.

“Will there be a scar?”

She sounds strained, and he glances up, sees a moment of that vanity she hides so well. Her lips are red, a flattering color. The red comes out of the corners of her mouth, dripping, getting into his way.

“A small one. Hardly visible, if we put the right ointments on it.” He tugs the thread again, and blood falls on his hand. “If you stop breaking it open.”

He goes to tie it off, cut the excess.

“Wait,” she says, but he closes the shears, the thread breaks, and the spark sets all her blood aflame. “Ow.”

“All better, see?”

He stands up, and kisses her, hands on her waist as they begin to burn.

“It won’t hurt so badly now.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Coddling her won’t help.”

Kedric closes his eyes, inhales, counts to ten.

Fifteen.

He exhales.

“I didn’t ask for your input.”

Rho is just out of his reach, staring at her Guardian. She is slumped asleep across Kedric’s chest, lashes still damp with tears, breathing slow. He strokes her hair, Tamzin’s hair, comforting, habitual, the faint glow of his eyes catching the wet tracks on her cheeks.

“You’ll never be able to go back to the Tower if she doesn’t get herself together.”

Her hair still smells like smoke. It will until they find a bath. Burnt ether, burnt flesh. Overkill, perhaps, but they were enemies. It’s excusable.

Isn’t it?

“We will. She will.” Kedric sighs, tilting his head back, staring into the void above them. “It’s been better. It was just a bad moment. Bad timing.”

A scream, not even close to the pitch of a Wizard. That was all it took. A flinch, an outburst, a panicked cry, a flash of heat that nearly incinerated him, nearly burnt him away.

He won’t forget her face crumbling in shame as she realized what she’d nearly done to him.

There’s still ash on his boots. He can’t move to brush it away without waking her up.

“And if there’s a bad moment in the City? If there’s bad timing on the Farm?”

Rho screamed at her. Screamed, berated, until Tamzin screamed back at her, a wordless keen, so long and loud the Ghost cowered in fear, vanished, leaving Kedric to catch her as she collapsed into weeping.

“Just shut up.” He sounds weary, unspeakably so, and he has no answer for her. No answer to any of it. “Just… go away.”

She does not.


	11. Chapter 11

He is alone in their bed when he wakes in the dead hours of the morning, the bedding barely warm where Tamzin ought to be.

She thinks he is still asleep, surely, because she doesn’t look up when he comes to stand in the hatch. The only sound is her breath, soft numbers, the gentle click of bullets being lined up in perfect, straight rows.

She finishes, reaches some mysterious number. Starts anew, several inches closer to herself.

_Click. Click. Click._

“Tamzin.” Her name makes her falter, and she drops the bullet in her fingers, turning her head. She looks frightened, as if he might berate her, as if she’s been caught doing something wrong.

Kedric kneels beside her, gingerly placing his hands on her, kissing her on the cheek.

“What’s all this, sweetheart?”

Her gaze flickers across her rows, these bullets. She points to the farthest row, the shortest.

“Cosmodrome. Fifty-six.”

The next, a set of rows, some smaller bullets appended.

“New Toronto. Ninety-one, eleven at close range. ”

She goes on, and he does not interrupt her. A city, and a number, sometimes a distance, a specification as to the nature of the kills, the distance, the type. 

“Mars.” She taps it. “One thousand, two hundred, and five. Twelve days. Three hours. Fourteen minutes.”

At last, the rows at her feet.  

The last, incomplete, one bullet lying out of the line, ruining the symmetry, until she picks it up and carefully slides it into place. “Tangled Shore. Twenty-three.”

"The Reef." She stops, then, staring at her other hand, her closed fist. “This one doesn’t count.”

“What are they?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know this, as if he can’t guess. “Why?”

“This one was zero.” Tamzin sounds opens her hand, and there’s a bullet from her sidearm in there, resting in an indentation she’s made by gripping it too tightly. “Zero. One is the first after you come back.”

“Come to bed,” he says. “Come to bed. You need your rest. If you’re not tired, we can--”

“I’m tired.” Tamzin finally seems to be listening to him, speaking to him. “I am. I can’t stop thinking, though. I thought putting it out like this, counting it out…”

He waits, but the only sound to follow is the hum of the ship’s systems. It offers no answers. No clarity.

“Can I help?” Kedric fills the long silence, sweeping her hair back, running a hand down her spine. “How can I make it better?”

“Can you turn my thoughts off?” She sounds weary. She leans against him, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to think about anything at all.”

“Come to bed, Tamzin.” A kiss, a touch, until the tension begins to ease from her tightly-wound frame, until she wraps her arms around his neck. “Come to bed, and you’ll only have to think of me.”

He exhausts her, holds her, until her breathing is deep and even, her face relaxed, eased from worry and pleasure to simple rest.

Even so, as he closes his eyes and falls asleep, he hears Tamzin beginning to count her dreams.


	12. Chapter 12

The months pass, and her burdens seem to ease as they make their way through the system, one job, one mission, one spontaneous expedition at a time.

They come to Nessus in the Earth’s autumn. The Drifter’s voice comes over the radio, hailing them from orbit, rousing Tamzin from her nap and Kedric from his distracting Vanguard network browsing.

“Need some glimmer?” His voice is crisp on the comms. You can tell he’s smiling. “Got room for two.”

“Are you feeling up to it?” Kedric turns off the channel to ask her, searching her face. “Do you want to?”

She hesitates. She looks away, down at her hands.

“Yeah,” she says, as if she’s surprised at her own answer. “Yeah, I think it’ll be fun.”

Kedric cuts the Hunter’s legs off at the knees, his sharp exhale sounding like the snarl of a vicious dog. Blood sprays his armor, visor, but he is oblivious, sneering as his victim screams in agony, bleeding out on the dirt.

“Kedric.”

Tamzin says his name, and he is by her side in an instant. Rho is healing the bullet wounds to her chest, but he puts a hand to the injury anyways, an arm slipping behind her back as if to support her.

“Are you alright?”

He’s so earnest that she laughs, and it makes blood come out of her mouth, staining her teeth and lips the color of the fallen leaves around them.

“I’m fine,” she wheezes, coughing until the blood comes out, until only air is left in her lungs. “That was a bit much, though.”

Kedric follows her gaze over his shoulder to their opponent’s corpse.

“Maybe.” He gets to his feet, then helps her up, slipping several motes into her pouch. “For your trouble.”

“You got the kill!” Tamzin protests, but she doesn’t move to give them back, and it makes him smile.

“Still no Primeval on the field!” The Drifter’s impatient voice echoes on the comms, and Tamzin stifles a laugh as Kedric dramatically rolls his eyes. “Bank those motes!”

“I’m going to hold onto them the whole game now,” she confides, granting Kedric a devilish smirk before she puts her helmet back on. “Just because he’s nagging.”

“You’re a brat,” he informs her, tilting her head aside with a hand on top of her helmet. She just jabs an elbow into his ribs before jogging toward the sound of gunfire.

Kedric rubs his side, but he’s smiling as he watches her go.

“She’s doing better,” he says, voice soft. “She just needed a break.”

"I hope so.” Kessy does not sound so sure. “I hope it’s enough.”

His relief is tainted by that familiar fear, unspoken until now. Kessy sees the tension building in his shoulders, the tightening of his hand into a fist.

“She’s doing better, Kedric.” His Ghost tries to reassure him, a bit too hurriedly. “You know I just worry.”

“Yeah.” He exhales. “I know."


	13. Chapter 13

They are beginning to decorate for the Dawning when the lovers finally return to the Tower.

Kedric is unable to conceal his wonder at the lights, the sounds, dragging Tamzin through the snow-kissed streets, pointing out each sparkling thing as he pulls her along.

“Did they do this last year?” He sounds as if he doesn’t believe it, as if this simply couldn’t happen while he was away from the City. “All of this?”

“No, they’ve never done any of this before. Not even one light.” Tamzin can’t help giggling at his wide-eyed awe, though he’s been like this since they landed yesterday, all infectious joy. “They only started doing it this year, just for Kedric. I’m as surprised as you are.”

“Don’t be mean,” he feigns a pout, turning, picking her up by the waist and spinning her about. “Look at all this! Even a jaded old girl like you has to love it.”  

“ _Old?_ Who’s being mean now?” He gets a slap on the arm, but then she’s laughing, shrieking as they spin. “Alright! Alright, I like it!”

She staggers as he sets her back on her feet, dizzy, but he is there to catch her, steady her until the world stops whirling about.

“It’s good to see you happy,” he says.

 _It’s good to see you normal_ , he means.

“I’m always happy when I’m with you.” Tamzin lifts herself onto her toes, brushing a kiss across his lips. “Even when we’re running all over a dumb festival.”

He grins, returns her kiss, slow and sweet. The sound of bells echoes through the streets, and he pulls away, looking around like a dog seeking out the source of a whistle, eyes alight.

“Where did those come from? Oh! ” Kedric takes her hand, and they’re off again. “Tamzin, look at those!”

“I see them. They’re beautiful.” Tamzin is smiling, enjoying his company, enjoying the smells of the food being prepared in this street stalls around them. “Go look. I’ll get a snack.”

He hesitates, then darts off, weaving his way through the crowd to get a closer look at the bells.

Tamzin follows her nose to a dumpling booth, set up outside a butcher’s shop. She orders, then steps aside to wait, watching the steam rise, casting her eyes around for something more interesting to look at.

The butcher has a pig on his board. He’s cutting it up. Tamzin feels an odd, familiar churn in her gut as he slices it open.

Loch’s insides looked like that. Chunks of him, wet and fresh, spilled, sprayed out across the block.

“Tamzin!”

She turns away at the sound of Kedric’s voice, feeling her pulse pounding in her neck, fast and frightful.

“I’m getting food,” she says, quickly, anxiously, smiling for his benefit. “You should get some, too. It’s good down here.”

“Food sounds great. I’m hungry.” The Hunter’s smile falters. He reaches out, touching her brow. “What’s wrong? You’re sweating.”

She feels cold, but a hand to her cheek finds a sheen of sweat, somehow hot in this winter wind.

“Oh, that. I stood too close to the steamer.” Tamzin keeps her smile in place as she sees blood on her hand instead of perspiration, feels gore dripping down her cheek where a bead of sweat has formed. “Besides, we’ve been running all over the place. I’m surprised you’re not all sweaty, too.”

“You’re right, of course.” Kedric hugs her, kisses her on the brow, dabbing her sweat away with the edge of her scarf. “We’ll slow down once we eat. We can relax!”

She holds onto him, clinging to him, until his arms tighten about her in return, and she feels her feet back on solid ground again, finds herself back in this moment, in her own skin.


	14. Chapter 14

“You seem to be doing well.”

Ikora is appraising her, looking her over. Tamzin can feel her eyes on her back, taking her in, and she wonders how many of her hours have been watched in the past week. In the marketplace? In the Tower?

“Travel was good for me,” she says, keeping her tone light. “Kedric was very helpful. You ought to make him official, you know. He’s very useful for missions that need a Hunter’s touch.”

She’s holding a book she held once, long ago, in a life that seems entirely apart from the present. The pages are brittle between the worn covers.

Tamzin can remember the number of steps from the hangar to this office, the way Cayde-6 handled her like a frightened child, the way Ikora smiled when she first spoke. She can’t remember what drew her to this book, though. She can’t recall why the name of this woman, this stranger on the page, felt like her own.

“I’ve been considering it.” Tamzin hears the faint scratch of Ikora’s pen, a gentle shuffle of papers. “You did good work. I am glad to see you back, though, especially after your difficulties earlier this year.”

“Yeah?”

She won’t admit anything. She won’t let herself be led into confessions.

“Indeed.” Ikora sighs, a gentle sound. “Tamzin, might we talk?”

Tamzin rolls her eyes while her face is safely facing the shelves, but she turns around with a small smile, a curious tilt to her head.

“Of course. What about?”

She’s heard Ikora say to other Warlocks that she doesn’t have to worry about them, one person she doesn’t have to fret about alongside all her other concerns. Tamzin sees, as she sits down, that she is not one of those exceptions.

“I just want you to know that I’m here to help you, should you need it.” Ikora begins, tone kind. “I know you’ve had some difficult times. War is hard on all of us, even Guardians with your talents.”

Tamzin can’t quite control her face. Ikora must be able to see her anger, her resentment.

“Help how?” She knows Ikora wasn’t finished speaking, but her voice comes out harsh, sharp.

Ikora doesn’t seem surprised by her response, nor does she seem upset by it.

“We can talk.”

How simple life would be, if that could help, if that could fix whatever’s gone wrong in her mind.

“Ikora…” Tamzin says the name to temper herself, to force herself to pause before she speaks. It nearly works. “Talking might’ve helped years ago, when it all actually happened. It won’t help me now. And we both know you have more important work to do.”

 _We both know you’d always be too busy_ , she doesn’t say.

They stare at each other for a while, silent. Tamzin can’t tell if they’re measuring up one another, or just trying to come to terms with the way things are, the way things used to be, the way things always will be.

“I’m here if you change your mind,” Ikora says, resigned, a bit tired. “If you need me. Please, take care of yourself.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Tamzin starts to rise, to put her book back on the shelf. Ikora holds out a hand, a gesture to stop her.

“Hold on.” She draws something out of the desk, and holds it out to her. Small, wrapped neatly in simple yet colorful fabric. “A belated Dawning gift.”

Tamzin takes it, but she doesn’t open it.

“... Thanks.”

She goes back to her room, sits on the floor, and stares at the parcel for a long time before finally unwrapping it.

It’s a copy of her book, freshly printed, a crisp copy. Ikora has penned something on the leaf, and Tamzin traces her finger over the words, feeling the raised lines of dried ink.

_“Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the Earth say, Let there be Light.”_

She’s been sitting there for hours when Kedric comes.

The sun has set, and the streets are lit by lantern, by the Traveler, by the laughter of children and the sound of music.

“What’s that?” He asks, bending down to kiss the top of her head, inhale the scent of her hair. “A gift?”

“A memory.” She closes it, showing him the cover. “My first book.”

“First ever?” He asks, running his fingers across it, as if it might shatter if handled too roughly. “It looks new.”

“First in this life.” It sounds so silly, when it’s said like that. “The old Hunter Vanguard put me in Ikora’s library, when I got here. I found it while I was waiting, and I started reading, because I didn’t know what else to do. I was just... overwhelmed.”

“Is it good?”

Tamzin smiles, shaking her head. “It’s… passable. It’s very old. But it’s where I found my name.”

“Oh.” Kedric takes it from her, then, flipping it open, as if he’ll find some meaning in these dense paragraphs, these tiny letters. “I’d like to read it, if you’d let me.”

“You hate reading,” she points out. “You always tell me how boring it is.”

“The first book you chose to read is special, though.”

His smile is sweet, and it makes her heart ache a bit to see it, to realize how much she loves him. She reaches out to touch his cheek, to make sure he’s quite real.

“You can read it all you want.” Tamzin says. “Just don’t break the spine. Or bend any of the pages.”

“I’ll take good care of it,” he promises.

He turns his head, and kisses the palm of her hand.


	15. Chapter 15

The Dawning passes and the simple, cold winter persists, leaving crisp snow on the rooftops and cold floors in the mornings. Tamzin and Kedric fall back into their routine, the place between missions, the place where war seems to take place far, far away. 

They sleep late, sleep little, taking full advantage of the comfort of their own bed and one another, finding their way back to the way things used to be. 

Tamzin remembers thinking, this very morning, that it could be like this forever. That she could be happy this way. 

“Let’s go to the market,” Kedric mumbles against her ear, hand on her flat stomach, still half-asleep. “I want to go out today.” 

“Later,” she tells him. “After.”

After, when they’re clean, when they’re finally dressed. She has to shove him out the door, hurry him, because he can’t keep his hands off of her and they’ll never leave if he starts up again. 

“I want to get a new cloak,” he says, watching her tug the door to make sure it’s locked. “And we can find a new coat for you.” 

“I don’t need a new coat,” she informs him. “I have plenty.” 

“Half of them are ugly,” Kedric pokes her in the side. “You need nicer colors. Less tattered rags.” 

She just sighs, admitting defeat, letting him take her hand and lead her to the lift, to the City far below. 

They kiss in the elevator, as they do. She will remember the way Kedric smiles, cups her cheek in one hand, tracing her scars with his thumb as he tells her she’s beautiful, that she’s doing so well, that she finally looks well-rested. 

“You know I hate--” Tamzin begins, but he kisses her to shut her up. 

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats, smiling as she begins to blush. “My beautiful girl.” 

Everything is normal, until it isn’t. 

When she found Kedric, dying, there was some warning that her world was about to end. She had seen the smoke, the decimated settlement, the fires. 

Today, the sun is shining. The marketplace is busy, and the people seem to forget that there is a war outside these walls, for today they are safe, and they are happy, and their children are running around with makeshift footballs, squealing each time they imagine they’ve scored a point. 

“I wish we could have one,” Kedric said, feeding her a piece of flatbread. “A kid, I mean.” 

She’s sitting on his lap, on a bench. He’s got a hand on her stomach, but it suddenly feels like a sad gesture, as if he’s disappointed. 

“Why?” Tamzin wrinkles her nose, chewing slowly. “Put more honey on it.” 

“I don’t know. I guess it would be nice.” Kedric complies, tearing off the next piece, offering it to her, letting her lick the honey from his fingers. “Just a little person the two of us made.” 

“I don’t want to talk about why that would be a terrible idea right now.” Tamzin gives him a honey-sticky kiss on the nose, laughing at his protests. “Let’s go back to shopping.” 

“Later, then.” 


	16. Chapter 16

Later. 

They’re looking at Sparrows, window shopping the new models. There are ships roaring overhead, as they always do this close to the warehouses, in and out at all hours, getting repairs and picking up cargo. 

“I like the green,” Tamzin points at a metallic model, chrome the color of jade coating the panels. “It’s pretty.” 

“Until the sun hits it and blinds you.” Kedric shrugs, though he’s lingering over an equally shiny gold one, one finger on the smooth paint. “We don’t need anything today, though.” 

“Not today,” she agrees, mentally calculating whether or not she can afford to get it today all the same. “Do they have something to drink? I’m parched.” 

“I’ll get us some water,” Kedric says, patting her on the head. “Don’t go far, I don’t want to lose you.” 

“I won’t.” 

Tamzin  wanders closer to the street, the storefront, hoping to find some air without the stench of fuel, the heat of engines and people. There is nothing to be found, though, no relief, and she ends up leaning in the doorway, eyes closed, hoping for a breeze. 

This is, she thinks, how it happens. Her recollection is not quite so clear later, when the noise has stopped, when the chaos is cut off by the loud slam of a heavy door. 

There is a shriek. 

Tamzin feels her heart skip a beat, feels time slow. 

_ It must be a child, _ she thinks.  _ It can’t be what I think it is _ . 

But it keeps going, getting louder, closer, until she feels it in her bones, feels it in the metal parts of herself, shaking her to the core, until she realizes she is sitting against the wall, her knees to her chest, her hands over her ears, trying to block it out, trying to hide. 

She will remember that she wants to scream, but her throat seems to close up. Perhaps that’s why nobody else is hurt. They are moving away, frightened of her, unsure why a Guardian is having some sort of fit in the middle of their peaceful street. 

One man doesn’t move away. 

What does he say to her? 

“Guardian,” probably. “What’s wrong?” 

She doesn’t hear him. She just feels a hard hand on her arm, a claw, and she lashes out in a blind panic to get him  _ off _ of her, a shove that ends with a brilliant flash of fire. She is scrambling away as the blackened husk falls to the ground, as she sees that this was no Thrall, this was no Hive attacker. 

The screeching stops. An engine, powering down. 

The people are quiet as death, save for a child. A boy. 

He is wailing, crying, kneeling beside the blackened corpse, trying to touch it, burning his hands as he does. 

“Papa,” he screams. “Papa?” 

Tamzin’s face is streaked with tears. She is frozen in horror, staring at this blackened body, this screaming child, the ashes on her own skin. 

She starts trying to wipe away the ashes. Wipe off the dead. 

It spreads. She is smeared with human ash now, filthy, but she knows she has to get it off. She has to clean it away, clean this up, find his Ghost, find some help--

“Guardian,” someone shouts at her. There are guns pointed at her, at her head, surrounding her. “Show your hands.” 

She does, because she doesn’t know what else to do. 

“It was a mistake,” she says, as they take her wrists, as they force her face down onto the ground. “I thought--”

“It’s murder.” One of them snaps, handling her arm a bit too roughly, twisting it as they cuff her. “You fucking murdered him.” 

“Hey,” another says, quieting the first. “Just do your job.” 

They haul her to her knees, her feet. The kid is still there. Still crying. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“You killed my dad!” The boy screams. He throws something at her- A rock? 

It cuts her. The pain brings her back to her senses, somewhat. The taste of her own blood. 

“Kedric?” 

Her voice is weak, and they are leading her away. She can’t find his face in the crowd. 

“Wait. Please. He won’t know what happened to me. Please, I have to find him."

They do not listen. They do not wait. 

Tamzin does not remember the walk back to the Tower. She just remembers the taste of copper on her lips. 


	17. Chapter 17

She was doing so well. 

It’s a stupid, useless thought to have, but he’s stuck on it. 

She was doing so well this morning. This week. This month. She was  _ better _ . 

Had it all been an act? Had she faked it? Or had one mechanical malfunction, one loud noise in a busy street, been enough to shatter any progress they had made? 

Kedric watches them try to pick up the corpse, cover it. The touch of a sheet is enough to make it begin to crumble into ash, leaving blackened bones behind as it falls onto the paving stones.

A boy is screaming, crying. He can't see him, but he has a sickening feeling that those are the sounds of grief. 

“He was with her,” one of the women is pointing at him, and the guard turns to follow her gaze. Kedric turns away, pulling up his hood as he starts toward the Tower. There is a crowd of morbid onlookers, curious about the source of the chaos now they know it isn’t an attack, that the danger is gone. 

“-- A Warlock, they said.” 

“Only one?” 

“-- so many children nearby, thank the Traveler it wasn’t--” 

He tries to close his ears, but part of him knows that he must hear these things. He must know what they’re facing.

"Just up and burnt him away, like blowing out a candle." 

“What are you going to do?” Kessy asks. She sounds frightened. 

“I don’t know.” He has no reassurance for her, or for himself. “Find her. Find out what they’re going to do.” 

“I can help.” The Ghost grabs onto this, desperate to be of some use. “I’ll find out where they’re keeping her.” 

“Thanks.” Kedric sidesteps a group of guards, presumably on their way to make the crowd disperse. “I’ll… try to come up with a plan.” 

Kessy doesn’t respond. Either she’s distracted, or she doesn’t have the heart to tell him there is no plan he can make that will fix this.


	18. Chapter 18

Even with her boots on, the floor hurts her knees. They still ache from her landing on the holding cell floor. 

Earlier? Yesterday?

She doesn’t know how much time has passed. She isn’t even sure this is real.  

Tamzin has to focus to keep herself from counting the  _ two-hundred and twelve, thirteen, fourteen _ hairline cracks in the concrete, spiderwebs left by some Cabal bomb or enraged Titan or ancient earthquake or--

“Tamzin.” 

She inhales, bracing herself. She looks up. 

“Your actions today cost a civilian his life.” 

Zavala seems more angry than sad, but he’s always been hard for her to read. She wants to laugh at the way he says it, as if she forgot to turn off the stove, or lost control of her Sparrow, or any number of careless things that caused unhappy accidents. 

Accidents. Her clothes still smell like burnt skin, like the suppression grenade they used to get her into a holding cell.

“It has become abundantly clear that you are a danger to those around you.” 

They’re going to execute her, aren’t they? 

She hopes Kedric doesn’t have to see it. 

She hopes Kedric didn’t see what she did. 

Tamzin closes her eyes, forcing herself to breathe, trying to focus on Zavala’s words, but they’re slipping through the hairline cracks, and she is numb, a black hole in her chest eating away at the edges. 

“-- exile.” 

She stops breathing, and she opens her eyes. 

“What?” The word comes out as a breathless gasp, the pitch a bit too high. 

“You are hereby exiled from the Last City, the Tower, and all Vanguard outposts.” 

Tamzin feels like someone has thrown her out of an airlock. Zavala continues speaking, watching her reel with cool indifference. 

“You will surrender all Vanguard property, and all privileges and titles associated--” 

Ikora won’t meet her eyes, and suddenly Tamzin feels that black hole filling with fire. 

“How dare you.” 

She speaks, and it is far louder and sharper than she had expected, strengthened by the heat of anger in her chest. 

“You make all of us into killers. You train us to be  _ monsters _ . And- And then, when we break, you what? Throw me away? Turn me out?” 

The room is silent, save for her heavy breathing. She can feel the tension of the guards behind her, prepared to spring forward and restrain her should she become a threat. 

A  _ greater _ threat. 

“If you think I’m dangerous, put me down. I’d rather be shot like a rabid dog than let you wash your hands of whatever death is waiting outside these walls.  _ Coward. _ ” 

Tamzin spits on the ground, far from Zavala’s boots, but her contempt is tangible enough to make up for the distance. 

The Vanguard stares, indifferent, or sad, or disgusted-- She can’t tell. But they aren’t seeing  _ her _ .

They’re seeing a girl who went mad with grief. They’re seeing a Warlock, unable to control her power. They’re seeing the ashes of a dead man, smeared on her face.

They see a wildfire, burning out of control.

Zavala does not speak, but he must gesture, for the guards come to haul her to her feet. They are wary, as if she’s hot to the touch, as if she’ll kill them next. 

Tamzin stumbles as she tries to find her balance, and her gaze finds Ikora. The Warlock Vanguard is impassive, but Tamzin sees what might be disappointment in her eyes. 

“Come on,” one guard tugs at her arm as they get her on her feet, steering her to the door.

Tamzin closes her eyes, and feels her fire burning out. 


	19. Chapter 19

A heavy bag, the straps cutting into his palm, his fingers. The final click of the latch as he closes the door to their room.  

The hallway from their quarters to the exit, the outdoors, feels long today. 

Kedric remembers taking these steps with her by his side. Pausing, pressing her against the wall, a door that was not their own, to steal a kiss, perhaps a bit more. 

There is a presence, a Guardian, loitering in a doorway. He passes by, lost in his thoughts, focusing on his next step, the next, then the door, and the long walk to the Hangar, and-- 

“You don’t have to do this.” 

He falters, hand on the doorknob, half-turned, halfway to letting the light and cold into this dim hallway. 

He doesn’t have to turn around. He recognizes Shiro’s voice. 

“I do.” Kedric says, and he finds his voice shakes slightly, betraying his anxiety, his fear. He speaks again. “I can’t live without her.” 

Kedric can guess what he might say. He is taking a road that has no way back. He is too young, too fresh to this life, to make this sort of decision. He’s leaving the City, a safe place, to be alone in the wilds of this warring system. 

Kedric knows, and he is afraid. And yet, he has a greater fear. 

Shiro-4 speaks, at last. 

“Take care of yourself, kid.” 

Kedric closes his eyes, and sees himself turning around. He imagines going to sleep, alone, then reaching out in the night to find no one there. 

He sees Tamzin, far from the safety of this Tower, waiting for him. 

“Thank you,” Kedric opens the door, blinking against the bright daylight. “For caring about her when she was alone.” 

He does not wait for a reply. He steps out, steps into the cold January air. 

He doesn’t look back. 


	20. Chapter 20

Tamzin lies in a clearing, the chill of the snow seeping through her clothes, her suit, making her skin feel like it’s on fire until it goes numb.

She ought to get up, or at least put her helmet on to keep the heat in.

Instead, she stays there, forcing herself to stay still, breathing through the sting of the subzero air on her cheeks. 

She’s still got ashes on her face. They’re probably still on her hands, too- Not that she’s taking off her gloves to check. 

There was some line in the religions of the old world, and a piece of it is tugging at the edges of the mind, incomplete yet ever so suitable. 

_ Ashes to ashes _ . 

That was it, wasn’t it? 

She closes her eyes, and she can see the ashes crumbling around bones, shifting in the wind, scorch marks left to mar the paving stones. 

“Tamzin?” 

Kedric’s voice is faint, but it carries well on the crisp winter air, ringing off the black pines like the chime of a bell. She doesn’t answer for a moment, and he calls again. 

“Tamzin.” He sounds frightened, this time. 

She exhales, forcing herself to move her fingers, grimacing at the pain in her frozen joints. 

“Here,” she says, coughing and repeating herself when it comes out barely above a hoarse whisper. “Over here.” 

She can hear his steps quickening from a walk to a run, and he is beside her within a minute, falling to his knees beside her, letting a large rucksack fall into the snow as he pulls her upright. 

“What are you doing? You’re freezing.” Kedric is already pulling off his cloak, wrapping it around her, rubbing her hands with his own. “I gave Kessy the coordinates. Didn't she tell you not to wander off?” 

Tamzin lets him bundle her, staring at their hands with a detached expression. Her fingers tingle and sting as her circulation returns. 

“I was trying to ground myself.” She doesn’t have to look at his face to feel his surprise and confusion. “But then I just… wanted to go to sleep.” 

“You were going to let yourself die.” He grips her hands, nearly crushing the bones, and she winces at the pain. “You were trying to freeze to death.” 

“... Yeah.” 

Tamzin doesn’t have the energy to lie to him. Not after the past few days. 

He wants to lash out. He wants to scream at her. He’s shaking with the effort of restraining himself.

“Tamzin.” Kedric says her name as though he’s in pain, and the agony in his voice finally makes her look up, cutting through the fog of her shock. “I’ve given up everything for you. You can’t leave me now.” 

Her blank expression lingers for a moment too long, but then she closes her eyes, squeezing out tears that freeze on her pale lashes. 

“I’m so scared, Kedric.” She begins to shiver, as though she’s only just felt the cold. “I want to go home.” 

"Oh, Tamzin." The tension of his anger softens, and he sighs, brings a hand to her cold cheek. “I’m your home now, my love.” 

He draws her into an embrace, letting her weep against him, feeling a perverse relief at her distress. This is better than that awful, blank indifference.  _ Anything  _ is better than that. 

“As long as you and I are together, we’re home.” 


	21. Chapter 21

Rho is too cowardly to show herself in the days that follow, and part of Kedric is glad for it. He doesn’t have the energy to spare for the vicious Ghost, and Tamzin…

Tamzin is frightening him.

She is in her fretting phase once more, pacing, churning black dirt into once-white snow, biting her nails until he can see the blood welling at the edges, leaving small smears of crimson on her chapped lips.

“I can’t remember.”

He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, finding his patience, his restraint.

“You don’t have to remember.” It feels like the hundredth time he’s said these words, in different arrangements. “It doesn’t matter now. We can’t change it.”

“No-- No.” Tamzin holds out her hands, as if she’ll stop him, as if she’s warding him off. “No, it does matter. What if I knew he was human? What if I--”

Kedric has heard this again, and again. It’s better than the silence, he tells himself. It’s better than the tears.

It isn’t, really. None of it’s better. None of it’s going to change anything.

They’re taking shelter in an old tenement, still standing, a courtyard now overgrown to meet the forest beyond. The walls keep the wind out, the cold, the damp, and they can keep one another warm beneath his cloak, when she can be convinced to lie down.

She’s gone silent, he realizes. She’s staring off into the trees again, staring at something he can’t see.

“Tamzin.” He rises. He goes to her side, slipping his arms around her, bracing himself for a blow, a cry, a storm of tears.

“It doesn’t matter.” She holds out her hands as if she’s testing the air for rain, and he can see the streaks of her blood on her fingertips, the slow ooze of more where her teeth have cut into her flesh. “He’s dead.”

“It’s over,” he tells her. He presses his lips to her hair, inhaling the unwashed scent of her, the faint stench of ash and smoke still clinging there. “It’s over. Come back to me. Please.”

She’s already gone, though. Already silent, in her own head.

“Put her to bed,” Kessy says. “She needs to sleep.”

He gathers her up. He fears, for a moment, that she’ll shatter like glass when he lets her go.


	22. Chapter 22

Here is a new dream, a dream for these cold nights.

She is in a small space, a closet, with a man, a man she doesn’t know, doesn’t recognize. They both reek of alcohol, sweat.

“We’re all gonna die,” he says, chants, the words strained as he thrusts, makes her cry out. “We’re all gonna fuckin’ die.”

“Shut up. Just-- Just shut up.”

She’s got her hands on the wall, and she can feel the rumble of cargo being moved, people packing, lives being uprooted, children crying at the disruption.

There’s people outside this door.

She can hear them, drunk, shouting over loud music, trying to dull the terror that’s saturating everyone in this place, trying to pretend the evacuation isn’t the end of the system as they know it.

It’s not working.

She can’t drink enough to forget.

He finishes, tries to leave.

She doesn’t let him. Not until she feels alive.


	23. Chapter 23

“We’re looking for work,” Kedric says.

He has a different voice, a different tone, and it makes Tamzin look up, jars her enough to make her aware of her surroundings once more.

They’re on the Derelict, somehow. Cold floors, cold walls, bizarre tendrils in icy tanks.

She wonders what would happen if she melted those blocks of ice. What would come slopping onto the floor with the rush of water, like so many tendriled fish bursting from a broken tank.

“Is that so?” The Drifter sounds interested, or as interested as he ever does. “Vanguard overstaffed these days?”

Tamzin feels their eyes turn to her. She swallows, wets her lips, finding the shape of words again.

“Got fired,” she says. “I’m not allowed back in the City.”

Kedric lifts a hand, puts it on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, support her. She sidesteps it, keeps walking toward the wall, each step reconnecting her mind to her body, her pain to the present.

“Exile? Damn.” He’s still talking. Talking at her back. “What kinda trouble have you two been getting into?”

She puts her hands on the hull, feeling the chill, feeling this place and time. Finding herself.

Perhaps Kedric brought her here on purpose. Perhaps he knows, somehow, that she can’t let herself show weakness around this man.

“Do you want to hire us, or not?” Her voice is clear, sharp. She can feel Kedric’s tension ease, a slow exhale as he sees her inner fire for the first time in days.

“I’m sure we can work something out.” The Drifter is laughing, enjoying her directness. He’ll try to pry the story out of them later, she knows.

Perhaps she’ll tell him she’s been spying on him for the Vanguard, until now. She’d like to see the look on his face, would like to ruffle his feathers, if it’s even possible.

The wall is cold. She pulls off her gauntlets, letting the chill sting her bare skin.

“Tamzin?”

Kedric touches her on the shoulder, and she realizes she has been here for too long, lost again, far away.

“... Sorry,” she says. It’s the first time she’s apologized. “How long?”

“Long enough.” He says. Long enough for the Drifter to notice. Long enough to ruin any facade of normalcy she’d hoped to maintain. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

“We’re staying?” She lets him turn her, adjust her coat, her hair, kiss her on the cheek, wrap an arm around her waist to guide her. “Here?”

“For now,” Kedric says. He keeps her in step, watching her eyes, waiting for any sign that she is losing herself again. “Room and board. A job or two. Stop off at the Shore, if you want to.”

“Do you care what I want now?” Her tone is bitter, slightly nasty, but he does not seem phased.

“We need to go somewhere,” Kedric replies. “We need money. You need--” He stops walking, turns to face her, look into her eyes. “You need to get better.”

“I’m--”

“If you say ‘I’m fine,’ I’m going to scream.” He grimaces, bringing a finger up to her lips, silencing her. “You aren’t. You’re all over the place.”

Tamzin doesn’t try to speak, doesn’t try to displace his hand. She just looks up at him, waiting.

“We’ll get glimmer. You’ll settle down. We’ll be safe enough, until we’re ready to be on our own.” He moves his hand, strokes her hair, tucking the stubborn strands behind her ear. “It’s temporary.”

“We can’t trust him.” Tamzin says, voice soft as can be, all too aware that their host might be eavesdropping. “With anything.”

“I don’t plan to.”

He leans down, kisses her, grip tightening for a moment as he tries not to think about how long it’s been, how badly he’d like to skip dinner and go straight to bed, if she’d let him.

Instead, he breaks away, breath catching, planting another, softer kiss on her brow.

“We’ll be careful.”

Tamzin smiles as she feels his desire play out, a faint, sweet expression that makes him bite his lip.

“Maybe,” she answers his unspoken plea. “After we eat.” 

If she doesn't lose herself again. 


	24. Chapter 24

He tells a story, after she’s been put to bed, after the lights are dimmed and the engines are idling. They pass a low-grav flask, then a bottle, feet propped up on crates, shoulders against well-worn seat backs. 

“We went to Titan,” Kedric says, staring into the shadows above them, listening to the creak of some beam settling on the ship. “We went to Titan to do some scrap salvage. Get some supplies, some materials to sell. Shoot some Hive.” 

He takes a sip, grimacing at the burn of cheap liquor, pausing to let it clear his tongue. 

He tells a story about this girl, this Guardian, going off on her own to look at the control room, to find some communications tech, some wires, something valuable or useful. She is herself, though a bit jumpy, a bit distracted, mentioning that she has seen this place in her dreams, that she died here, near here, came back to life on this very floor. 

She has the shape of Tamzin, in his words, this girl who burns the world away, this girl who screams and sets alight the Hive she encountered, her fire blinding him through the windows of the control deck, through his visor. 

The girl he finds on the floor, shaking, crying, still has that shape, still feels like his beautiful, brave partner, and yet… 

Something has been shaken loose, here. She does not recognize him at first. She nearly kills him, until he takes hold of her, says her name, soothes her. This frightened thing does not know where she is, when she is. 

She holds her arm, staring at a single gash, the single injury she received before turning all of the Thrall to ash. The same way she will hold her arm when they are home, in bed, and she sit up, screaming, the bedsheets aflame beneath her. 

There are broad strokes in this story, strokes that gloss over, skirt around the secrets of his beloved. 

Missions, he tells the bottle, staring into the warped glass. They went on missions, killing hundreds of enemies, sleeping beneath the stars, until she was herself again, until he held her and she did not feel like a shell of herself. 

He gets up, then. Paces away, through the ship, to the place he left her. She is dead to the world, asleep, exhausted, bundled up on a poor excuse for a mattress that still serves better than a rotting wooden floor, his cloak pressed to her face, her stuffed dog tucked into the crook of one arm. 

He kisses her on the temple. Tucks her in. She doesn’t stir. 

The Drifter is still sitting there when he comes back, waiting, patient. He’s toying with his jade tokens, rolling them over his fingers. 

“No action tonight, huh?” The click of a toothpick rolling across yellowed teeth, the faint crack of wood. “Must be in rough shape. Had to beat that one off with a stick, back in the day.” 

“She’s tired,” Kedric says, ignoring the implication, brushing past it to consider it another day, settling back down. “It’s been difficult.” 

“Sounds like it.” He holds out the flask, mostly empty. “Exile, though? That’s harsh.” 

“Is it?” The Hunter sounds dubious. He turns the flask over in his hands, an almost nervous gesture. “It seems… lenient, given the circumstances.” 

His tone, his trouble expression, seem to intrigue the Drifter. He leans forward, watching the boy’s face, watching his hands. 

“What happened next?” He asks. “After you went back?” 

Kedric closes his eyes. He takes a sip of liquor. He empties the flask. 

“Nothing.” He coughs, clearing his burning throat. “Nothing, until the last thing.” 

He lets the flask fall to the floor. Neither of them move to pick it up. 


	25. Chapter 25

In her dream, she is on Titan again. 

She’s still drunk, really. Hard to walk straight, think straight, feel much at all. 

She is walking along deserted corridors, the lights from silenced alarms casting eerie shadows on the walls, the storefronts, the small cleaning robots gliding to and fro before her, jerking aside to avoid tripping her up. 

These commercial areas are empty already, the storekeepers gone to pack their personal effects in their homes. Some didn’t even both to lock up-- Or perhaps the locks were broken, picked, pried open. 

A boy comes out of a drug store, carrying boxes of some sort. He stares at her, wary, like a hunted animal, before darting away, down the hall, out of sight. 

Looters. There’s looters here, desperate to strip the Arcology for what it’s worth before the evacuation. Before they’re all refugees. 

She should have gotten someone to walk with her. 

She looks back toward the docks, the bar, the way she came, but she’s halfway home now, and going back would be silly. 

She hears a shout, a scream. Laughter. She walks forward, though something tells her not to, tells her that she’s walking into the end of things. 

There’s three men in a shop, looming over a woman. She’s on the floor, her shirt torn, her hair disheveled, her eyes wide with fear. 

“Hey!” She, Tamzin who is not Tamzin, yells, stumbling, storming toward them. “Hey, leave her alone!” 

They turn, staring at her, confused. Taken aback. 

“I’m calling security,” she says, lifting her arm, pressing on something on her wrist-- It’s a comms device, she knows, somehow. “You bastards, taking advantage of--” 

She falters, because she sees Rho behind them. 

Rho? Not Rho? Something metal, small, a blue eye staring at her. 

“This way,” it says. “Just come this way.” 

She steps forward, and one of the men moves. 

There is a dull thud, a hollow sound, and then there is a pain in her chest. 

She stares down at the knife, at the fist holding the hilt. 

“I’m sorry,” the Ghost says. “It will only hurt for a little while.” 

She sees the other woman scrambling away, running, and the man pulls the knife out and sinks it into her chest again. 

She staggers. 

She falls. 

“One step at a time,” the Ghost says. “A little farther.” 

The woman’s footsteps fade away, but the man keeps stabbing her. Keeps hurting her. 

She tastes blood. She sees that eye, blue and bright, just above her. 

“We’re going to get out of here,” the Ghost says. “I promise.” 

She feels herself drowning in her own blood, but the pain doesn’t stop. Not until she forces herself to inhale, until she feels the last beat of her shredded heart, the last of her blood filling her chest cavity. 

“Rest,” Rho says. “I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

The darkness takes her. 

She cannot wake up. 


	26. Chapter 26

“At last, the coward shows herself.”

Kedric can’t keep the sneer out of his voice, grip tightening slightly on the doorframe, eyes narrowing. Rho is there, in the galley, lurking in a corner as if she’s trying to avoid being seen. He checks over his shoulder, making sure Tamzin hasn’t followed him.

“Don’t want any witnesses?” Rho’s tone is a bit dry, despite her apparent weariness. “I just want to talk.”

“Haven’t you done enough of that?” Kedric steps through the door, at last, goes to the cupboards, starts searching out what he needs to make something caffeinated. “You’ve been whispering poison into her ear whenever I’m not in the room, I’m sure.”

“That’s… fair,” she admits, looking down, as if she’ll find the words she needs on the floor. “But I haven’t been. I’ve left her alone.”

“It’s more than fair,” Kessy snaps, materializing before the other Ghost. “She deserves a better Ghost than you. It’ll take me ages to fix the damage you’ve caused.”

“She’s not your Guardian to _fix_ ,” Rho protests. “Even if I have--”

“What did you want to say, Rho?” Kedric cuts in, slamming the magnetic base of his mug on the shelf that serves as a counter, struggling to tear open a packet with gritted teeth. “Spit it out so you can go back to hiding.”

“She’s not a Guardian anymore.” The Ghost directs this to him, looking past Kessy. “Neither of you are.”

Kedric bites his cheek, holds his peace, waits for her to finish.

“I just wanted her to be a hero. You know she could be. She has so much potential.” Rho sounds like it physically pains her to say these things to him. “But it’s too late for that now. We have to figure out another plan. And I realize I can’t do that without your help.”

“Rho,” he says, still facing the wall, hands crushing his packet to keep him from touching his gun, from doing something he’ll regret. “Rho, you’re not going to do anything. There is no plan.”

Kessy glances at his back, feeling his suppressed rage, his tension.

“You’re going to act like a decent Ghost for once. You’re going to be helpful, and not fuck with her head. And if you so much as look at her the wrong way, feed her any of your lies, I will tear off your shell and put you in a box, and the only time you’ll see the light of day is when I pull you out to use like a cheap first aid kit.”

The Ghosts are both staring at him now, taken aback by this uncommon brutality, this uncharacteristic threat. He turns to face them, a tight smile on his face.

“I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding,” he says. “Now, Kessy. Why don’t you go see how Tamzin’s doing? I’ll make lunch if she comes out to eat it.”


	27. Chapter 27

She’s got her feet up on his control panels, propped up like she lives here, like she didn’t abandon this ship as soon as Kedric began spending time with the Drifter.

“You got that poor boy wrapped around your fingers, sister.” He flips a toothpick out of his pocket, spitting out his old one onto the floor. “How long are you gonna keep this up?”

Tamzin closes her eyes, tilts her head back. Her hair doesn’t fall back the way it ought to, heavy, unwashed, dark with oil and dirt.

“Keep what up?” She asks, as if she doesn’t know. “I’m just… tired.”

The Drifter snorts, a sound of derisive amusement.

“Lemme give you some advice, kid. You’re not gonna last outside your precious City if you fall apart every time you get your feelings hurt.” He sits back, rolling his toothpick between his teeth, studying her. “Nobody’s gonna hold your hand out here. These aliens? They don’t give a shit if you’re scared, if you ain’t right in the head. They’ll shoot you just as quick if you’re crying, and shoot him even faster for trying to protect your sorry ass.”

“Shut up.” Tamzin opens her eyes, looks at him, though she doesn’t move. She looks pissed, and he grins, because he knows he’s right, and she knows it too.

“Nah, princess. If you want to watch that pretty boy bleed out next to his busted Ghost, you go on. Keep feeling sorry for yourself. Let that lightfried brain keep twisting you up. I’ll enjoy the show either way.”

“You don’t know anything,” she snarls, lifts her head, glares at him. “You’ve got no fucking idea what I’ve been through.”

“Sister, I really don’t care.” The Drifter shrugs, glancing toward the hatch, listening for the sound of Kedric’s footfalls. “But you’re gonna see worse. I can promise you that.”

She opens her mouth to reply, to ask him something.

“Tamzin?”

Kessy’s voice cuts in, and the Warlock stiffens, wondering how long she’s been there, what she’s heard.

The Drifter doesn’t look surprised at all.

“Kedric wants you to eat,” the Ghost continues, as if she heard nothing. “Let’s go to the galley.”

Tamzin inhales slowly. The Drifter just gives her a sidelong look, that irritating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“... Fine.” She stands up, wincing as her muscles complain at the movement, shrugging her coat back up about her shoulders. “Let's go.”

Kessy waits for her to pass, staring hard at the Drifter as Tamzin ducks through the door.

The lightbearer just turns back to the control panels, whistling tunelessly as he pretends to work.


	28. Chapter 28

She reads the book one last time.

It wouldn’t take her very long, normally. Kedric wants to ask why she’s going so slowly, why she’s reading it at all, but these slow turns of the page feel like something sacred, something beyond his reach.

Tamzin closes the cover two nights and one day after she’s started, as the sun begins to rise over the Earth far below them.

“I’m going to pick up a cache for the Drifter,” Kedric says, pulling on his boots. “You’ll be okay here.”

“I want to go with you,” she replies, startling him. “I’ve got something I need to do down there.”

Kedric is hesitant, uncertain.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?” He asks, searching her face, trying to puzzle out what her plan is, why she wants this. “Will it… upset you?” 

Tamzin looks at the book in her hands, the crisp pages still firm enough to cut her flesh if she slides a finger along the edges.

“I’m sure.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

They go, bundled in their coats and scarves and armor, through a forest, into the mountains, until they have passed the timberline, until the air begins to feel thin in their lungs. They do not speak, yet this silence feels comfortable, familiar, only slightly chilled by Tamzin’s physical distance from him.

She is thinking of things that make her mind race, that make her stomach turn with nerves. He can sense these things, see the way her eyes are focused on something she has hidden within herself.

He slips his hand into hers as they climb. Helps her up a steep slope, catching her as she stumbles. She squeezes his hand, but lets him go. Walks on ahead.

There is a stone, a flat slate, covered in old snow and frail ice. She brushes it clear, still breathless from their ascent, casts her flames over the surface until it is dry.

Kedric waits, and watches.

“You can see it from nearly anywhere,” she says. The Traveler, she means.

It looms on the horizon, even this far from the City. He can’t see her face, can’t guess what she’s thinking while she stares at their implacable god.

She opens her satchel, pulling out her book, then a worn bond, setting them on the rock as if she’s putting them on display. Stepping back, she holds out her hands, her arms, tilting her head back to feel the heat of the sun on her face.

She says something he can’t make out, some word of power.

The fire embraces her, envelopes her, dancing across her skin, her clothes, her hair, finding the shape of her, forming into vivid wings on her back, a brilliant flame cradled in her hands.

She lets her fingers part, and the fire falls like water, like sand, flowing onto the stone, finding the feast she has left it.

The stone becomes a star, for a moment, as she becomes a supernova, blindingly bright.

Kedric covers his eyes, shields them from the heat.

When he opens them, Tamzin is all that remains.

The snow has melted around her feet. The stone’s surface has become slick, smooth, reflecting the winter light like glass. Her offering, her past, has vanished, become nothing more than ash on these frigid winds.

“Tamzin?”

She turns to him. She smiles, and once again he is blinded by her brilliance.

“I’m here,” Tamzin says. She holds out her empty hands, her unbound arm, looking at them as if she’s seeing them for the first time. “I think I’m free now.”

He takes her hands in his own. They're warm, and he feels her heat spreading up his arms, chasing away the chill of the mountain air, the icy weight of his apprehensions. 

“Come on,” he says, voice husky, barely suppressing some emotion he doesn’t quite understand. “Let’s get this job done.”


	29. Chapter 29

“I thought we’d leave Earth soon,” Tamzin sighs, watching her breath turn into fog, drift away on the subzero air. They’re high up, high enough that she can see nearly half the Traveler from here, a moon looming over the horizon, setting the sky aglow. “Like, right away.”

“Yeah?” Kedric grunts, dragging a heavy crate to the transmat beacon behind her, boots slipping on the ice, slowing his progress significantly. “Well-- It’s only been a few weeks.”

“We should get as far away as possible. The Reef. Saturn. Anywhere.” She picks up his knife, left by her side. She slips a finger into the grip, testing the weight with a spin. “Far away from them.”

Kedric slips, landing on his ass with a woof of effort, a string of curses. She turns, blinking at him.

“Do you need help?”

He sighs, leaning forward, putting his arms and head on the crate, catching his breath.

“Help would be nice,” he says, breathless. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

He watches her picking her way through the snow, following his footsteps to the short trail left by the crate’s progress so far. She puts her hands on her hips, frowning at the scene, and he can’t help smiling at the familiar expression. She’s found a puzzle.

She walks past him, pulling up the beacon, walking back and shoving it into the ground beside the crate with a huff of exertion.

“Tamzin,” he says, just to see her face light up at the sound of her name. “I missed you.”

She smiles, and while it’s a sad smile, a tired smile, his heart feels like it may burst.

“I’ve been here the whole time.” Tamzin sits on the crate, puts her feet on either side of his hips, smiling down at him as she puts her hands on his head. “I always will be. Even if I’m not myself.”

He puts his hands on her thighs, sliding them up to put his arms around her waist. She’s warm, familiar. He doesn’t want to stir, doesn’t want to move, lest she fade away, fall back into one of her silences, fall away from him.

“Are you yourself now?” Kedric asks, searching her face for a true answer. “Did that help?”

Tamzin closes her eyes. She breathes in the icy air, the way she does when she’s meditating, when she’s feeling the air flow through all her limbs, becoming aware of her body, her Light.

“I’m never going to be better,” she says. “I’m never going to forget. But I think, out here… We can start over. We can be something more than Guardians, maybe.”

Kedric catches her hand, weaves his fingers between his own.

“We can figure it out together. Maybe someday the Vanguard--” He falters, feeling her tense, seeing her expression shift. “Or not.”

“Not.” She doesn’t push him away, but she looks away, toward the Traveler, chin lifting defiantly as she speaks. “I’m going to make them regret the day they didn’t kill me, Kedric. One way or another.”

He ought to be worried, when she says that. He should feel some sort of fear, some kind of aversion. And yet, seeing the way those words change her posture, her tone of voice, give her an air of promised violence…

Kedric slides his hand down her side, beneath her coat, leaning forward to kiss the inside of her thigh.

“What are you doing?” Her malice has been replaced by surprise. “I’m being serious.”

“I know,” he replies, kissing her again, nipping at the fabric of her pants, the suit beneath. “You’re swearing vengeance. It’s very attractive.”

“Kedric--” Tamzin lightly cuffs him on the side of the head, shoving him back, failing to stifle a giggle. “Stop it. Not in the snow, you idiot.”

“I’ll warm you up,” he grins, pulling her off the crate, rolling her over into the drifted snow, laughing as she shrieks at the cold on her bare neck. “It’s been weeks, you know. I’m going to die if I can’t have you.”

“Kessy will bring you back, I’m sure, if you can’t stay alive until we get back to the Derelict.” Tamzin shoves a fistful of snow into his face, laughing as he sputters. “Now get off of me, before we get beamed up with the cargo.”

He buries his face in her neck, lingering, holding her there. Tamzin closes her eyes, lets her head fall back, feels the tingle of ice melting on her scalp. He kisses her on the throat, the jaw, the lips, and she just takes it in, sorts through the detritus in her mind to find this moment, simple and sweet, high above the rest of the world, the last of her ties to the City scattered to the wind.

“We'll be happy,” Kedric promises. “We’re going to make it work.”

"We're going to be outlaws," she replies, and he feels a shiver down his spine at the way her lips form the words, breath hot against his skin.

"We're going to make them fear us." 


End file.
